There is a mixed school on the benefits or lack there of on MelaFix.
Anti biotics work, thats a given, but its hard to say MF does/would/won't. NOt to make a long post out of this reply but I am into Koi
and ornamental goldfish, and belong to a few other web forums...Fin
and tail and  mouth rot are a big concern and there is a ton of
various meds out there thats sold and claims to be the preferred
treatment.  I was given all kinds of info on various treatments, such
as adding salt, (talking freshwater here now) malachite green
w/formalin, antibiotics, Potassium Permangante dip,  or just water
changes, and a few other well know but variant of one of the above
meds.

I went and set up 6 10, gal tanks all equipped identical  filtration
etc and filled with water made up as a large single  500 gal batch.
Then I went to town and started to try and find 200 decrepit eat up
bacterial infested feeder type goldfish...was not hard to find, as all
I had to do was visit Wal MArt or Petco. Wal MArt was higher in price
and did not have anywhere near enough so off to Petco...where I
scored.....and bought 200+ pityfully inflicted feeders...

I put 15 fish in each tank, and each tank was treated with a med.
Tank #1 I used nothing but water changes for one tank, absolutely no
meds, #2 tank had salt added, Tank #3 used antibiotics in it, Tank #4
I used Potassium permanganate (2 full long term treatments) Tank#5 I
used Melafix in #6 I dosed with malachite green/formalin
treatment.....To make a long story short, the fish treated with
Potassium Permanganate healed up and were cured the fastest, and their
treatment was over within 24 hours and showed signs of heaing within 3
days,  followed by antibiotics  which took better than 2 weeks for
full recomended treatment and to see noticeable impvement, and then
the tank with nothing but water changes(50% daily). Malachite Green
and formalin treatment came in next  but took close to 3 weeks total
and melafix treatment was dead last. I had mortalities in all tanks
and the M/G, salt, and Melafix had the most casualties.......After it
was all over with, I again separated the fish into good healthy fish
and still sick fish and placed them in 2, 55 gal tanks. I just allowed
the good ones to get fat and nice, and treated the balance in the
still sick tank with PP, and got them all on the road to good health.
IIRC I had a total of 62 fatalities out of 200+ feeders that I bought,
and all were treated in the end and those that survived were released
in an enclosure in my large natural pond and best I can tell have been
doing just fine short of natural predation occurances.

I then decided to see what it took to clean up the tanks I had used
for my experiment. I am a firm believer in Potassium Permanganate, at
least for fresh water, and dosed all 6 tanks with the usual cleanup
dose of PP. All tanks but the melafix tank cleaned right up and I
would not be afraid to use that water in the other 5 tanks if I had
to. But I had to hit that melafix treated tank 2 more times until I
was able to get the PP to retain its color for more than the usual 6
to 8 hour timeframe. Melafix just adds so much junk to a tanks water
its hard to eliminate it, so I definately would not ever want to see
it put in a display tank. ABout all I can say from my experiment and a
lot of well known individuals in the koi world is melafix is snake oil
as is pima fix. Its good to mask a foul smelling tank if you like the
vicks vapor rub type smell, but for curing fish, I have my doubts, and
believe if your also doing the associated water changes, its those
water changes that gave the fish a chance and helped heal it not the
melafix.....End of rant on the snakeoil  xxxxFIX's...
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         oooO
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                (
The original frugal ponder ! Koi-ahoi mates....

----------------------------------------------

Mike Kelly then asked

Thanks. This answers the whole Melafix thing. Does anyone know about PP and
saltwater? Can it be done

-----------------------------------------------

Yours truly (miskairal)

Awesome!
Thankyou for this info Roy as I have freshwater fish as well and in Oz
we can't buy antibiotics for fish. When I was nursing we used it a lot
in baths for kids with infected sores (usually from scabies). Personally
I prefer to avoid antibiotics anyway.

Would you allow me to reproduce this post of yours at guppylog.com which
I visit frequently? We have often discussed the use of melafix and
potassium permanganate but none of us have anything near as conclusive
as your info.

Could you also tell us how you used the pp? ie. what strength did you
make it, how often did you add it etc. With the kids baths we used to
make the water pink, not purple, and bathe them twice a day.

Ditto to Mike's question - can it be used in a salt water setup?

Thanks again
miskairal

---------------------------------------------

Roy's reply

I have never seen mention of PP in any of the saltwater forums. I
mention PP to my frieind that owns a LFS and he shudders. He has a lot
of experieince with livestock and has a natural pond that had
problems, and it was recomended by biologists to hit it with
PP.............and he messed up......needless to say what the outcome
was. I use PP 2 x a year on both my ponds as a prophylactic...I
oxidize them late fall, and early spring.......and I use it whenever
needed on most of my tropicals in tanks etc........So far knock on
wood have not had any saltwater health issues. Prophylactic doseing
with PP has made a big improvement in my natural ponds water quality
and fish health since I started doing it. Its good at reducing any
nutrients so it helps with algae blooms and rich water which also has
an effect overall on my ponds fish health caused by these conditions,
mainly ulcers, fungal and fin / tail/mouth rot etc... One pond is 1.68
million gallons and the other is a bit over 2.9 million gallons so I
do consume quite a few pounds of PP every year on just prophylactic
stuff. It may be hard top get in your country though as here in the
USA its watched by the DEA and BATF folks pretty close and you need a
permit and compliance papers to buy any large quanities. I use
Technical grade. PP is al;so in big demand by the back yard drug
makers, and it can also be used as an oxidizer in making homebrew
explosives so since 9/11 it gets pretty close scrutinization.  However
its stll available in small quanities at exhorborant prices. Doc
Johnson the world reknown koi vet gets $25  for a 3 ounce
container.....I buy 55 pound pails for $48..

To determine the amount I need I use the standard recomended dose, but
test a water sample first with a few different dosses. This is called
a demand test, which consists of a given amount of water with X amount
of PP added, and then wait and see how long the color lasts, and make
my final decision as to the dosage rate from the demand test results.
Object of the ordeal is to maintain the purple/pink color in the water
for a minimum of 6 hours and no more than 8. However its also possible
to give a fish a short term bath/dip in a somewhat stronger than
normal solution of PP as well.......But its use in SW has gone
unanswered for me to......I just may have to email a friend at the
University of Florida that works the fish biology section and see what
he can find out... If any place would know, thr U of F certainly will.
The damsels thelocal petco sells are infested with fin and tail rot
problems and various other diseases, and they are cheap enough to try
it on if its useable in SW......what I would do with damsels
afterwards would be my big problem........not a big fan of them by any
means.

You can use anything I post, its no problem with me.......I tried to
do my experiment as close and equal across the board as I could.

----------------------------------------------

Wayne's comment

That was a nice experiment. It's always good to see
experiments like that. It's been many years since I've
used pp in tanks. I'm not big on dumping medecins in the
tank. One nice thing about pp is that you are left with
just potasium, wich is quite natural and nontoxic, though
it does stain brown. People often use a medicine, and the
fish get better, but it's not known how much the medicine
actualy worked. PP has been used in reef tanks in low
doses to oxidize nutrients, but I don't recall anyone
using it in reef tanks for medicinal purposes. One sorce
for pp is the companies that sell whole house water
purfification systems that use pp, such as Culligan.
The use of pp in aquariums has been around for many many
years, but it's never realy become popular.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets
Wayne@WaynesPets.com

-----------------------------------------------

From Roy again

PP is  not really classed as a medicine. Its just a super strong
oxidizer that most fish and other things can tolerate. Bleach is also
a good oxidizer but not much can tolerate it, at least the things you
do not wish to harm. For the ost part, PP just does away with any
nasties and lets the fishes own immune system take over without having
to work overtime  to get over the hump.

Biggest mistake most folks make with it is not figuring out the
correct water capacty and amount of PP needed to do the job. Talk
about the pucker factor was when I took on doseing my first pond, and
trying to come up with its capacity. Its not a given shape, and varies
considerably, and even just a rain or dry spell changes all my
figures. Onc eyou starat and have it dosed its all over but the
waiting....as its impossible to counteract the PP due to $$$$ costs it
wold take to treat the amount of water in them, but you can use
hydrogen peroixde or most any water conditioner to couter a PP
treatment going south on you in smaller envirionments. Even the pros
have been know to screw up using it like Doc Johnson, who overdosed
and wiped out many thousands of dollars worth of champion koi....
.
I may just get a pico sized tank setup and cylced with LS/LR and a
mushroom or two and some other cheap or fragged items of things I have
and introduce a typical Petco Damsel to it and see what happens.

The brown stain is a result of all the unwated junk being
oxidized....it will dissapear with time or extra filtration, or by
using hydrogen peroxide or water conditioner after the 6 to 8 hour
time frame has elapsed. It gets to be some really nasty looking stuff
during that time frame though and gets your mind to thinking did I do
the right thing......It reminds you of what the inside of a  full
septic tank would look like .thick nasty "skimtimate looking junk,
lots of foamy brown/black scum and bubbles. I had 50 watt submersible
lights in 12 inches of water in one area and they were not able to be
seen for about 2 days afterwards. After a treatment its readily
apparent which fish may have had a fungus you did not notice or some
other problem as there will be brown stained areas on its
body........Some colors of fish in a large natural pond are just hard
to get a close look at, but there is no second guessing once its dosed
with PP and yu see the brown spots showing. So let me see what I can
dig up on useing PP in sw and start to setup a small tank...yet
something else to fool with.  I know the fish can be caught and placed
in a QT setup and you would not have to worry about inverts, corals
etc, but I am also interested in seeing if it has any adverse effects
on them as well,  and what it may do to any pods, beneficial bacteria
etc etc, which antibiotic and other meds seem to wipe out in the
coarse of treatment.
-----------------------------------------------

Me again

Can you give me any idea of the dose rate to start with though Roy as the only bottles of pp I've seen here (many years ago now) had precious little on the labelling?

------------------------------------------------

Roy's latest reply

A start would be the initial risk....but here goes.
Right from the folks at the U of F....
For most fish, potassium permanganate can be administered at a
concentration of 2 mg/L as a long-term bath (four-hour minimum) in
fresh water or salt water systems. Potassium permanganate is also
reasonably safe to use in recirculating systems and has minimal impact
on biofilters when used at 2 mg/L. Treated water should retain the
purple coloration for at least four hours.

I shoot for 6 hours minimum and 8 hours max for color retention.

For a treatment rate of 2 mg/L, this formula would be:

Grams of Chemical = Gallons Treated × 0.0038 × 2 mg/LTherefore, to
treat a 250-gallon vat, the grams of potassium permanganate needed are
as depicted below:

Grams needed = (250 gal) × (0.0038) × (2 mg/L) = 1.9 gramsAn
inexpensive gram scale can be obtained by purchasing a dietary scale
at your local grocery store or pharmacy. One level teaspoon of
potassium permanganate weighs about 7.0 grams.

Or better yet make a stock solution up as such for small systems:
A stock solution is a concentrated solution of chemical from which
small amounts can be taken to treat tanks as needed. This is useful
when either multiple tanks or multiple treatments are needed. An easy
way to make up a stock solution for potassium permanganate is to
purchase a one-gallon bottle of distilled water, weigh 285 grams of
potassium permanganate, add it to the solution, and mix thoroughly.
This stock solution will deliver a dose of 1 mg/L when delivered at a
rate of one drop per gallon. Therefore, to achieve the desired
concentration of 2 mg/L, the stock solution can be delivered at a rate
of two drops per gallon. The stock solution should be stored in a
cool, dark area and be replaced annually.
When treating larger systems, it is useful to remember that 20 drops
are equal to 1 milliliter (ml), or one cubic centimeter (cc) if
measuring the liquid with a syringe. Therefore, 1 ml of stock solution
will treat ten gallons of water with a concentration of 2 mg/L.

Itys best to store mixed stock solution in a dark or opaque container
in a cool out of the light area away from any hydrocarbons just ncase
it leaks. I store my stock in white plastic gal jugs in a sealed (snap
on lid) plastic 5 gal bucket.

And as a side  note to goat keepers. I had a proboem with one doe that
used to have a fungal infection  on lower legs and hoofs and after
numerous trips to vet and constant daily foot baths and much $$$ and
no results, I decided to either put her down or see what PP may do. I
gave her 3 days worth of treatments which consisted of a 1 hour stand
in  a PP bath......with no rinseing afterwards. Retaining a goat in
any liquid is a chore in itself. Within 1 week after initiala
treatment her legs and hoofs looked better than any treatment i paid
for did. Within 3 weeks all sores and infections were totally on the
road to being gone and she started to regrow hair..She made a full
complete recovery and is still doing fine.... Sorry about OT and goats
being treated, but PP is some good stuff if used right.....and it
works wonders on most fungal type problems. May not be the best choice
for Ich due to cost, but it still is a viable method of erradicating
ich. Potassium permanganate will kill bacterial, fungal and many
parasitic agents, but it is not viricide.

To do a demand test:
You can use this method to estimate the amount of potassium
permanganate required for effective treatment This method will.
determine the potassium permanganate demand or amount of chemical
required to react with all the organic matter in a water sample. This
procedure measures the 15-minute demand. This value is then multiplied
by 2 to give the recommended treatment rate. The 15-minute demand is
determined as follows:

Prepare a 1,000 mg/L stock solution by adding 1,000 milligrams or 1
gram of potassium permanganate to 1 liter of distilled water and mix
thoroughly.

1. Collect five 1-liter samples of the subject  water.
   
2. Prepare a series of test treatments. Add 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10
   

--
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-----------oOOo()oOOo---------------

         oooO
---------(  )----Oooo----------------
          \ (    (  )
           _)   ) /
                (
The original frugal ponder ! Koi-ahoi mates....